


To See Without Eyes

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, DnD AU, M/M, a little experimental, a little metaphysical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 08:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Choices have consequences.Who knows this better than a man such as Jean Valjean who has known the hardest of choices and the harshest of consequences.Perhaps it is Javert, a Paladin of the most righteous sort. Perhaps it is he who took the Oath of the Crown who knows that some actions simply cannot be undone.A Choose Your Own Adventure style DnD AU.





	To See Without Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLifeOfEmm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeOfEmm/gifts).

> Best viewed in a browser.
> 
> A little experimental, it shouldn't break, but you know what they say about best laid plans...

Choices have consequences.  
Who knows this better than a man such as Jean Valjean who has known the hardest of choices and the harshest of consequences.  
Perhaps it is Javert, a Paladin of the most righteous sort. Perhaps it is he who took the Oath of the Crown who knows that some actions simply cannot be undone.  
It is best to choose wisely.  


Proceed

The world was known as ‘Paris’ back then. A place of desolate hope and sordid dreams where men perished in despair, but on occasion, found a truth worth hoping for.  
It was in this Paris that Valjean, a thief, but by all accounts not a very good one, had failed in his task. With his luck he had rolled too low, and so found himself without a friend and the end of the long arm of the Law.  
That was a long time ago and Paris had long since changed. It has known peace for a while, but then the people had raked at the earth until she cried and blood seeped up from the soil.  
Valjean was no longer a thief. He was no less kind as he was then, but he had learned to find his kindness with a little more ease. Now, he traveled on foot - for the comforts of a horse or cart were too much for a lowly servant of the people - with a cracked leather satchel over his shoulder with a manner of trinkets and ointments and potions. He accepted no coin in return, he simply wished to aid. It was considered wise in these times to travel in a party, but Valjean could not stomach company, and so chose the lonely path. There were vicious creatures sent to uphold the rights of wealthy men, and desperate bandits who existed only to take, not to mention the natural dangers of the forests. But Valjean was as brave as he was kind, he was as old as he was tired, and so to him, danger to his physical self was no longer worth his worry. 

Just up ahead

Valjean heard the shout a short way ahead. It seemed to be coming from deep in the thicket, hidden by dark bows of heavy oak trees. Shouts continued, desperate, visceral, and then Valjean heard the growls too. Night was soaking the land and Valjean knew that darkness in the woods was miserable and fearsome.  
  
Who was this fool who wandered off the path at night?  
  
Valjean was not as fast as he once was, but he managed to cross the forest to the dreadful sound fairly rapidly. Once there he saw a cacophony of wolves setting upon an unfortunate soul who was doing his best to fend them off with a bright and shining sword. Valjean could see he was clearly injured, he winced every time he swung his arm and was clutching at his shoulder, and he was kneeling, propped up slightly better on one leg than the other.  
  


Help  
Leave well enough alone

Despite all his instincts telling him to do something, to make a statement of unconditional courage, some force he could not understand was telling him not to. Valjean had spent his life praying and regarding divine intervention as sacred, something bestowed upon the purest of men.  
  
It would seem that in this moment, the divine did not see him as pure enough to intervene. Or maybe, it was the divine that lacked purity.  
  
It was with a heavy conscience and a weary heart he watched the wolves devour their prey, before silently creeping back to the path to continue his journey. He was a healer after all, and not everyone can be saved.  
  
The dice are placed back in the bag. A journey ends; another begins? 

Valjean calmly and silently reached into his satchel and pulled out a pouch made from seal skin and yak hair. He tugged gently at the strings and emptied the contents into the other palm. He threw the lurid powder onto the floor with all his strength sending it shooting in all directions, sparks flying, dissipating into the mud. There was a quiet stillness for all of a few seconds and then a raging fire, bright green, and instant as a lightning flash, shone hot across the clearing.  
  
The wolves yelped, roared, looked to each other, their eyes shining yellow and crimson against the flames. Then with a cry they scattered in all directions away from the fire, but more importantly, away from the injured man. Valjean waited for the howls to silence into the night before he approached carefully.  
  
The man was muttering softly under his breath, his heavy brow furrowed in agony. Valjean knelt beside him.  
  
“We need to get back to the path.”  
  
“I can’t walk.”  
  


"I will carry you."  
"We can stay."

Valjean wasted no time in heaving the man onto his shoulder despite his muffled protests. It was a little undignified, but then survival was never as beautiful as it was in the mind.  
  
Valjean laid the man down in the dry dirt once they were safely out the dark covering of the trees. Now in the moonlight he could see the man’s face, dark and grizzled, covered in the faded scars of war and the lines and wrinkles of a tortured soul. But it wasn’t this that made him hesitate for a brief moment. It was the man’s attire, marking him as a paladin, as an arm of the Law.  
  
Valjean stood back, his hands slipping from the man’s shoulders until they were an arm’s length apart. He reached up to slip his coarse hood over his brow, it wouldn’t do much, but it might bide him a moment’s time before he was recognised. It had been many years since his face was plastered across the city as a wanted man, since he had been the type of man to run and flee. Most men of the law would have forgotten him by now. Most.  
  
“Where did you go? Come back.”  
  
The man - and let us make no pretence about it, he was Javert, that most upstanding and righteous of Paladins - was reaching out wildly with his one good hand, and his voice had a twinge of the pathetic.  
  
“I’m right here.”  
  
“Come back.”  
  
It was then that Valjean surveyed his face closer, and saw that whilst most of the scars shone silver in the moonlight, there were two that were fresh. Two lines, almost symmetrical, down the centre of each of Javert’s eyes.  
  
Valjean scolded himself for his sudden sense of relief that he would not be recognised. Javert had suffered a cruelty. It was no blessing. He reached forward tentatively and sensing a hand in front of him Javert reached out and grabbed it. Valjean felt the large rough hand enclose his, squeezing desperately, hanging onto his wrist as if his life depended on it.  
  
“Don’t go.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
Javert’s breathing was laboured, Valjean’s shallow. There were several moments of silence where they both knelt in the dust, neither saying anything.  
  
“My camp is nearby,” Javert said eventually, every word a groaning, heaving, effort. “I followed a sound and left alone, I shouldn’t have been so prideful.”  
  
“Mistakes can be forgiven.”  
  
Javert scoffed. “It wasn’t a mistake. Sometimes fate simply does not catch up to my mind. I know what I am capable of.”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“Sometimes I feel life is a curse. Doomed to follow in the footsteps of a divine hand I cannot understand.”  
  
“I do not quite agree with that.”  
  
Javert cried out suddenly in pain. “I surely don’t have much time, I demand you take me to my camp. My men are there, they will assist.”  
  
“Your men are there?”  
  
“Yes, men of the crown, loyal to the end, take me to them.”  
  
Men who would arrest him, Valjean thought. One of them would know.  
  


"I can heal you myself."  
"I will take you to the camp."

“We can stay.”  
  
The man fell on his back to the ground, seemed to crumple under an invisible weight. Valjean knelt beside him and put his hand into one of the man’s weak palms, lacing their fingers together.  
  
“Where are you injured?” Valjean asked gently.  
  
“My leg, my arm...my eyes.”  
  
“Your eyes?”  
  
“Clever these wolves.” There was a scoff of a laugh. A grunt. “Scratch at your eyes until you can’t see to fight back.”  
  
The man’s voice was weak, trembling slightly, and this close Valjean was sure he felt something there. A familiarity that touched at his soul, at his past, something that twisted his heart just a little. He couldn’t make out the man’s face in the dark so he couldn’t be certain.  
  
Valjean nodded, then realised it wouldn’t be seen, so he made a murmur of agreement. “We don’t always need eyes to see.”  
  
“A wise man has been sent to me as I head into the grave,” The man - who we do know to be Javert, that most righteous of Paladins - said. “This must surely be the end.”  
  
“I am a healer.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“What are you waiting for?” Javert asked, his voice grim, suspicious.  
  
“I don’t know,” Valjean admitted. He has still holding Javert’s hand, suddenly realising just how tightly. He then noticed he was shaking, his heart jumping, his face prickling like a child who has been caught by a lie. He took a deep breath then broke his hold on Javert’s hand and placed both his palms down on his leg. He prayed for efficiency, and the miracle was granted. Javert gasped as he felt warmth spread down his torn muscles and broken bones, knitting and weaving them back together at twice the strength. Then Valjean did the same to Javert’s arm.  
  
“You healers are curious, and yet-” Javert’s thought was interrupted by a savage tear across his chest and he doubled over in agony again. He let out a cursed and grasped at Valjean’s shoulders. “I don’t suppose you heal hearts? I fear that mine is broken.” After a pause he spoke again with a soft lilt of sarcasm and a twitch of his lip: “I told you I was dying.”  
  
Valjean was breathing steadily, his mind clouded helplessly, his mind swam, the trees bent low into his vision. “I- I’m sorry- I-...perhaps,” He said weakly. “I can try.”  
  
“Then perhaps, you might start with my eyes, and come back to my heart hmm?”  
  
Valjean felt the wet grass beneath his fingers as he propped himself up, felt the ground, steeled himself. Javert was a ruthless man, Valjean knew this, but here. He was as weak and helpless as a newborn, and he was asking for help.  
  
“I think,” Valjean said heavily, “That I could manage one or the other.”  
  
Javert’s pained breathing and occasionally gasps of suffering punctured the silence of the night and the pauses in Valjean’s laboured speech.  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“I think,” Valjean continued. “That I would not gain my strength back to do the other.”  
  
“Then you must choose.” 

Eyes  
Heart

Valjean knew that Javert must know the light. He must know his face. He placed both his hands over the scars on Javert’s eyes and breathed deeply, praying humbly. Javert felt warmth seep through Valjean’s palms and then he went from seeing nothing to seeing blackness.  
  
“I think it has worked,” Javert said softly, feeling Valjean’s own energy begin to drift away. “You may take your hands away now.”  
  
But Valjean did not. Not for a long while. And they sat there, kneeling opposite each other, Valjean’s hands caressing Javert’s face for a very long time.  
  
“Valjean…”  
  
Valjean’s hands slipped down Javert’s face and landed in his lap where Javert took them in his own. Valjean had tears in his eyes, he was stopping silently.  
  
“Forgive me, I-”  
  
“I forgive you,” Javert said.  
  
It was not prudent for either to mention that it was Valjean who really had the right to grant forgiveness, and it was Javert who should be the one to humbly accept. Yet, Valjean struggled to be forgiven, and Javert struggled to forgive, so it might have felt more meaningful this way.  
  
“You think I didn’t recognise your voice? Why do you always come to me when I am at the my darkest?”  
  
“I don’t try to.”  
  
“The divine that stops me no matter how hard I try, perhaps the divine was you all along. And here you are to watch me die, I don’t suppose you’ll accompany me to the other side?”  
  
Valjean sighed deeply and his lungs thanked him for the sweet night air. They knew they would not receive too much more.  
  
“No one is about to die.”  
  
“My heart is burnt, don’t pretend you can save it.”  
  
Valjean felt a soft laugh escape his lips. He shook his head with a smile, knowing that this was his end, it had come full circle.  
  
They rested with their foreheads pressed together as the moon bid good morning to the sun, and the light passed over their souls, gently handing them to the other side together. Perhaps if the night had more hours their lips might have touched, but conjecture rarely leads to satisfaction.  
  
The dice are placed back in the bag. A journey ends; another begins? 

Valjean did not know whether it was courage or cowardice that led him to restore Javert’s heart over letting him see the truth. It seemed kinder, yet he was still troubled. He placed two overlapping hands on Javert’s chest, palm to skin, and focused his energy on the broken vessel within.  
  
It took a long while for Valjean to knit Javert’s heart strings back together, it was so bruised and malnourished that Valjean worked almost to the dawn. He healed more than had been taken from him by the cruel creatures of the woods, he healed back years. Javert’s heart was starved and Valjean fed it. As he pulled away Javert gasped sharply, gripping to Valjean’s frail body.  
  
Valjean was at his weakest now, bare threads holding him to the ground, and he fell into Javert’s now sturdy frame.  
  
“How long will it take you to regain your strength?”  
  
Javert reached out, found Valjean’s face, touched his fingertips to his cheek. He felt tears there, Valjean was sobbing silently.  
  
“How long?” Javert asked again.  
  
“You will live,” Valjean whispered, so quiet that Javert could barely hear the frailty of his voice at all. “That is what matters.”  
  
“I wish I could have seen your face,” Javert said curiously, his fingertips still touching Valjean’s features. “I wish I could have known you.”  
  
Valjean let out a silent cry and then shot a silent prayer up to the divine. How cruel the world was, to knit two souls together with flesh and then slowly try to pull them apart.  
  
“Let me take you back to my camp, we will find a physician, it is not too late.”  
  
Valjean shook his head, Javert felt him do so with his hands.  
  
“No, you must see without eyes to get back to the city, it will take you too long with me beside you.”  
  
“I have made an oath to protect my people. How can I repay you if I can’t save your life?”  
  
“Live. That is thanks enough. Please Javert, just live.”  
  
“I give you my word.”  
  
Later Javert would ponder that he’d never mentioned his name to this benevolent stranger, but he would brush this thought aside as quickly as it had come. He had signed a new lease with the divine and he was determined to see it through. He’d given his word, and his word was his bond.  
  
The dice are placed back in the bag. A journey ends; another begins? 

“I can heal you myself, I have all I need.”  
  
Valjean searched in his satchel, praying he would find what he needed quickly. He heard Javert weakly protest, but he was already pulling the cork of a bright blue bottle off with his teeth and spilling it onto his fingers.  
  
“It might sting.”  
  
“It already stings.”  
  
Valjean rubbed the liquid on Javert’s temples feeling a few sparks dart between his fingertips as he did so. Javert twitched as he felt sorcery slide through his veins and into his limbs, renewing their vigour, twisting his insides with an unnerving power.  
  
“Is it working?” Javert groaned.  
  
“Patience.”  
  
“It’s agony.”  
  
Valjean glanced at Javert’s furrowed brow. He knew the man to be intense and strong. If his expression was pained it meant his suffering truly was great. Valjean willed the divine to intervene, but was met with only silence and knew his own two hands would have to do.  
  
Valjean found another little bottle, this one with a clear liquid that refracted a delicate purple in the moonlight. He held it up to Javert’s lips.  
  
“Drink this.”  
  
Javert did so without hesitating. “Will it help with the pain?”  
  
Valjean paused. “No. But it will help speed up the healing.”  
  
“A good healer is hard to find,” Javert mused as he winced hard. “I have never met one who has simply shortened prolonged suffering.”  
  
“It is hard to be a healer, most train their whole lives.”  
  
“You did not?”  
  
“No. I was not always a healer.”  
  
“And before?”  
  
Valjean was silent as he cradled Javert’s face in his hands, swept his thumbs along his fresh scars and surveyed his eyes. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but what about Javert could be considered pretty. The wounds were too deep set to simply reverse, he feared it may have been too long.  
  
“Can you do something?”  
  
“This is beyond me, but I will try and think of a solution.”  
  
“I won’t be much use without my eyes, you might as well have left me to die.”  
  
“Don’t say that. There are creatures who hunt purely on sound and smell, or who train and guide others. The hound has many senses, but I believe they see in few colours.”  
  
“But they do still see.”  
  
Valjean didn’t have much to add to that. “All is not lost,” He said simply, though he knew there were times he had felt that the depths would continue to grow and suck him in without hope of seeing the light again. To live in darkness would be a challenge, he prayed that Javert would find his light.  
  
There was silence.  
  
“You are very strong.”  
  
Valjean froze.  
  
“Strong indeed, for an old healer. Tell me what you were before.”  
  
“It is not important,” Valjean replied quickly.  
  
“You should have lied, told me you were a blacksmith or a labourer, now I know that it is of course very important.” Valjean watched Javert’s face break into a small smile. “Though I think you are not the type to lie so easily.”  
  
“No,” Valjean agreed. “Not without good reason.”  
  
“Then you have a good reason to tell me your past is not important.”  
  
“It isn’t. It really isn’t. I have no loose threads and my time on this earth is almost up. I have no reason to consider the past, to dwell on it as I have before.”  
  
“Tell me. At least let me guess.”  
  
Javert reached out and took Valjean’s hand, pressed it to his useless eyes as if he might see straight through the rough palms into the past. It was such an outlandish thought that on this path it might just have worked. But not quite.  
  
“What don’t you want me to see?”  
  
“Even those with perfect vision miss what is directly before them. I can’t tell you Javert, I’m sorry.”  
  
Valjean waited with Javert on the dirt path until a band of travellers aligned with all that is good and true passed by. They stopped to help the two kneeling men out of their own sense of nobility.  
  
“Do we have space for two?” One of the party asked the leader who imperiously held a book in one hand and a staff in the other. He closed his eyes, asked the divine if they had space for two. His mouth was set and he shook his head. “Benevolence has answered. We have space for one.”  
  
There was no sense arguing. Despite Valjean crawling fragile in the dust towards his own fate and Javert stronger in body than ever before, it was Javert who must travel with the party.  
  
“I will hear no other way,” Valjean said. “Go with them, you must serve.”  
  
“Thank you for your assistance kind healer,” Javert said as he was blindly helped into position. “I will send someone back to help you.”  
  
“I will be gone.”  
  
“You will run again? How long will you keep running?”  
  
“Not for much longer I think.”  
  
Valjean watched as Javert disappeared down the path and into the blinding light of the sunrise knowing it was the last time their paths would cross for good. Javert steeled himself on his new path, considering his new strength, and wondered if justice could truly be so blind.  
  
The dice are placed back in the bag. A journey ends; another begins? 

“I will take you to the camp.” Valjean said reluctantly.  
  
“It befits your duty.”  
  
“My duty?”  
  
“All citizens must serve the crown, some do it more diligently than others. I, for example, am the most devoted.”  
  
It was odd that Javert could still speak with this much antagonism and confidence as his body crumbled and fell apart before Valjean’s very eyes. Moving him would surely hurt him more, but it was as Javert demanded.  
  
He lifted Javert over his shoulder again, sure he could feel ribs crunching, which Javert confirmed with a desperate whimper. This was short lived as he soon steeled himself again.  
  
“What were you doing in the woods?” Valjean asked, trying to keep him talking and focused and conscious.  
  
“We are looking for a criminal,” Javert said, each word sounding more painful than the last. “A hardened and dangerous man, you must be careful yourself.”  
  
“Can you describe him?”  
  
“Eyes as black as the devil’s heart and his own soul just as cold.”  
  
Valjean shifted Javert in his grip. “Physically?”  
  
“He looks most like a criminal.”  
  
Valjean let the subject drop, Javert after all had never been much good at recognising familiar faces right before his eyes, perhaps he never had a good grasp on them to begin with.  
  
“Tell me about your oath.”  
  
Javert’s voice swelled with pride, so much so that the grunts of pain between sentences subsided considerably.  
  
“My greatest honour. The Law is paramount above all, society would collapse without it, we would all be slime and worse. Order and loyalty above all, it is the most noble and courageous of responsibilities.”  
  
“You always wanted to take the oath?”  
  
“I knew no other way of rising in this greatest civilisation than to be a guardian of the very matter that holds it together.”  
  
Valjean was quiet. He knew little of Javert’s past. He had attempted to put some of it together, but it was almost as hazy as his own. Everyone had their roles here in Paris. Everyone knew their skills, their methods of destruction, their power of speech and depth of movement. Valjean had changed, but he had torn himself apart first and then built himself back up piece by piece. He was sure he had put some of himself back in the wrong order, damaged corners, tried his best, but he was never quite the same. Something had dulled in him.  
  
It was divine’s punishment for not remaining steadfast.  
  
“We are all responsible for our duties,” Javert said. “There are consequences when we fail to perform as we are meant to perform.”  
  
“What are your consequences?”  
  
“Shame,” Javert said quickly. “Utter shame.”  
  
Valjean knew something of shame.  
  
Valjean saw the flames of the camp up ahead, knew it to be a death trap to march straight in, and yet, he had to. He had to save a life. There was a guard at the entrance, a fearsome spear in hand, and the arrogant glare that comes with youth stamped upon his face. Valjean approached and lay Javert gently at his feet. The youth stared.  
  
“Commander?” He turned his attention to Valjean. “What happened?”  
  
“Wolves--” Valjean began, but then he saw the look in the guard’s eyes, the recognition dawning on him. Valjean realised he had been foolish, of course a Javert would have informed his battalion of his one true enemy. He closed his eyes, desperate, the divine could provide a deception, he had to hope.  
  
“I am only a passing healer, I did my best, but now I must go.” He held his breath, not knowing how long he dared wait. The youth narrowed his eyes for a moment, but then his countenance cleared and his expression was wiped clean and bare.  
  
“I see. All appears to be in order.”  
  
Valjean didn’t let him finish. He spared a brief glance at Javert, now safe to continue hunting him. He didn’t have time to consider what might have been had he stayed with him for longer. And then Valjean fled, as he had so often done before.  
  
“What a strange healer,” Javert said as he was helped to his feet by his men and helped to a physician’s tent.  
  
“He looked familiar,” The guard said uncertainly. “A bit like...I don’t know.”  
  
“He sounded familiar,” Javert said slowly. “But you’re right, I don’t know. I cannot place it. I hope he finds his peace, it is no crime to be strange, and he was kind. Most kind.”  
  
The dice are placed back in the bag. A journey ends; another begins? 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for joining me in this little experiment. If it did anything for you then PLEASE let me know so I know if it's worth trying more things like this.


End file.
